I am wondering what´s the problem to marry a cousin and what that has to do with ancient eras - or at the least to Islamic history. My country, Finland, hasn´t never been islamic country but still - marrying your cousin is totally legal.
Also at 2016.
It is perfectly legal, and under normal circumstances there's no great risk in it. But there is something we understand now that nobody in ancient eras understood- if this is done quite a lot, over time it becomes much more risky and much less safe. Under less normal circumstances, the genetic variance between cousins can shrink to really worrisome levels, and each time cousins marry it brings their family tree one step closer to that. In a sense, it's a fly in the ointment that doesn't really have to be there
By the way, in Islam hasn´t never been sex slaves.
In fact there has, and the Islamic slave trade in every empire or caliphate has skewed heavily to the female side of things. The Atlantic slave trade dealt mostly with men, but the Islamic slave trade has always been about 75% women that were bought and sold. And as a matter of fact, some Swedish history has recently come to light that implicates your neighbors to some extent. Check this out.
http://www.thelocal.se/20120113/38486
You're familiar with the Topkapi Palace of the Ottoman Empire? That contained some of the most lavish facilities for sex slaves in all of history, and that was up and running right through the start of World War I. The most women that were ever housed there was about 400, and it was extremely lavish. There's plenty of history to look at when it comes to that place, quite a few in-depth historical treatments of certain women and if I remember correctly the most powerful eunuch in world history was associated with that place as well. Life improved for these sex slaves if they became pregnant of course, and some were fortunate enough to become wives and shed the slave designation. Circassian beauties were especially favored, I'm not exactly sure why but I suppose the most powerful Ottomans had a particular taste.
Topkapi Palace is not representative of all sex slaves of course, that's just the most obvious thing that has a lot of written material and scholarship attached to it. Also, if you look back at the history of threads I've started, one of the first ones had to do with Sharia law on the Indian subcontinent courtesy of the Mughal Empire. If you want, you can look at that follow the links and tell me whether or not you think sex slaves were permissible for Muslim men to capture and keep according to Sharia law on the subcontinent from the early 18th century through the early 20th.
And on a potentially-more-sensitive note, do you recognize the names Juwairiya bint al-Harith and Rayhana bint Zayd? They were married at one point in time- then suddenly and tragically widowed- and then they spent a little bit of time not being married and then both of them did marry again. To the same man, oddly enough, which is definitely not legal under the law of your country, Finland, in 2016.
That's not really the point, though. My question is this. During the period of time in between their husbands being killed and their marriage to a new husband, what was the nature of their employment during that intervening period, would you describe that situation as one of freedom or enslavement, and what do you suppose the compensation package consisted of for whatever services were being rendered? Just a little something I'm curious about.
This is a bit off the topic, so we don't have to go too far into it, just know that I could dig a little deeper and come up with the names of some concubines who never did become wives. Acknowledge this briefly and then we can move right along.
